


Home Planet

by facetofcathy



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, Earth, Episode Related, M/M, Safer Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-12
Updated: 2009-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:29:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facetofcathy/pseuds/facetofcathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's team have other plans, so he goes to see Dave.   Things do not go as he expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Planet

**Author's Note:**

> Tag to 520: Enemy at the Gate

John understood Richard Woolsey. He was the kind of guy John had grown up around; he was the kind of guy Patrick Sheppard had wanted John to be. Woolsey was the kind of guy that could work miracles with a phone and the catalogue of favours owed that he kept in his head. Now that Atlantis was floating around in the Pacific, he had a phone, and the first miracle he worked was browbeating the IOA and the SGC into letting all of Atlantis' senior staff have some time off before they were briefed, interrogated, bureaucratically dissected and fully informed of their shortcomings in vivid technicolour twenty-twenty hindsight.

John's first desire was to grab his whole team and go on a road trip, see some sights—see America. John wasn't expecting it to happen, and he wasn't surprised when Rodney told him he and Jennifer were off to Wisconsin and then Vancouver. John smiled and told him to say hey to Jeannie and the family and went off in search of Teyla. She told him that Richard was taking her and Kanaan to the opera in San Francisco, and then they were flying to Washington for some unofficial meetings with IOA people. If there was time, he was taking them to Milan too—more opera. That left–

"Hey, Sheppard," Ronon said, grinning like a kid on Christmas.

"What's up, big guy?"

"Amelia says there's this big kickboxing tournament in someplace called Seoul. Any chance you can swing some leave time for her, she wants to take me?"

"Sure, buddy, sounds like fun. I'll just get Woolsey to rig the paperwork."

"Did you know she can kick me in the head from a standing start?" Ronon asked, and his expression showed a mix of admiration and lust.

"That's, well—that's a very important quality in a woman."

"Yeah."

***

John stood in front of the ornate wooden door of the last house he'd lived in before he'd left to work his way through Air Force housing, Nancy's condo, cheap apartments, tents in the desert, one wild weekend in a Christchurch hotel, McMurdo , and finally, an alien city in another galaxy, (and occasionally just off the San Francisco Bay). Home was supposed to be the place they had to take you in, but had this ever been home? He figured he'd find out.

The housekeeper had a nice Virginia accent and a pleasant face, and John smiled at her and wondered if he'd need to introduce himself. She seemed to know him though, so maybe Dave had shown her a picture. _If you see this man, you have to let him in, but watch the good silver_. She put him in a guest room that was decorated in the height of twenty-year old elegance and told him to buzz if he needing anything. Since she likely couldn't tell him what the hell he was doing there, he didn't buzz.

Dave found him in the library, reading an old copy of Sun Tzu's, _The Art of War_, that John was thinking of stealing to give to Ronon. Five o'clock was a lot earlier than their father had ever come home when he ran Sheppard Industries, so John assumed a phone call had been made. He was going to make a crack about counting the silver, but Dave looked genuinely glad to see him, so he kept his smart mouth shut for once.

"John, my god, you look good," Dave said from the doorway. "Where the hell have you been? Why didn't you call?"

"You know, Dave, there's almost no question you can ask me that the answer isn't classified," John said. He expected the frown—the John's keeping secrets frown of familial disapproval.

Instead Dave smirked and said, "How about this one—scotch or bourbon?" and laughed at whatever look he saw on John's face.

"Scotch, and don't pawn off the cheap stuff, I've had my horizons broadened lately."

"Yeah?" Dave headed for the bar, and the really good stuff.

"Yeah, my boss is actually a civilian. Has expensive tastes in booze and cigars."

"Ha, John Sheppard having to give up his plebeian aspirations. If you start discussing your stock portfolio, I'm going to worry."

"My stock portfolio is one-hundred percent your problem. Tell me about it, and I may have to jump out a window."

Dave handed him a drink and sat in the twin to John's leather wing-back. "It's really good to see you, I'm glad you came."

"Yeah so am I," John said. He'd never in a million years expected this house to ever be a place where they were happy to take him in.

***

John reluctantly let Dave drag him into the office the next day. He grinned at Dave's resigned expression when he showed up at the door in jeans and a shirt that looked exactly like it had spent an intercontinental flight in a duffel bag. When he saw Dave's car, he actually considered taking the keys from him by force.

"Wipe the drool off you chin, John," Dave said and tossed the keys at his head.

It was conservative grey. It was a sedan, with room for the family Dave didn't have; it had nice beige leather and wood interior, and no one would say the words mid-life crisis when they saw it, but it had eight cylinders and more horses under the hood than the barns that disappeared in the rear-view had ever held. Dave looked a little pale when they slid into the parking spot reserved for the CEO of Sheppard Industries.

Dave dragged him around the office, introducing him to a few people, letting the few old familiar faces exclaim over the prodigal for not quite too long, and then he waved John away with an admonishment to not scratch the paint and to pick him up at six. Patrick Sheppard had never left the office at six. John watched Dave smile and joke with his assistant and some guy who'd been introduced with an alphabet soup of a title, and he realized, like maybe he should have a lot sooner, that Dave was not Patrick Sheppard.

John was smart enough to take the car to a detailer to get the dirt of rural Virginia off it before he went to pick Dave up, so he was ten minutes late, cruising into the forecourt of Sheppard Industries, scattering a gaggle of employees in grey suits and shiny shoes, Johnny Cash blaring out the open window.

"All you need is a leather jacket and some hair dye and you could be sixteen again," Dave said when he'd settled into the passenger seat.

"Hair dye," John said, trying to sound unamused.

"Shave first, if you want to try that line with a straight face. You're positively grizzled."

"Asshole."

"Shall we revisit some of the things you used to call me when I was fourteen and you were–"

"Don't know what you mean," John said, no longer hiding his shit-eating grin.

"How many tickets did you get today?" Dave asked when they took a turn slightly more quickly than warranted.

"Never saw me coming and couldn't catch me even if they had."

"Yeah, don't you get enough of that flying?"

"Don't fly planes or helicopters anymore," John said.

"But you're still, what do you call it, qualified?"

"Not on paper, not enough to, say, rent a plane and go for a tour, which I was thinking of doing, but it's not like I forget how."

Later, over dinner, Dave said, "What if I told you the Sheppard Industries jet spends a lot of time sitting idle with a very bored pilot on call?"

"I'd say that better not be a job offer."

"Oh, yes, John, I am crazy enough to think you'd ever work for me."

"You couldn't be the worst CO I ever had."

"Let me guess, all the good stories are classified?"

"Yup."

"So," Dave said, "what if you took the jet on an approved tour of the eastern seaboard and the pilot just happened to let you sit up front, and just happened to not care if you took the controls? It's a bit of a bus, but it is a jet."

"I'd ask why your pilot would allow that."

"Hey, he's a good guy—used to be Air Force, so if you tell him you're good to fly, he'll trust you. Just a thought, John. If you want to get up in the air, the opportunity is there."

"Maybe."

"He's on call, so if you want, I'll call him," Dave said, and then, "Hey, while we're making plans, how about we actually go out for dinner tomorrow. I have this place I like, they've got good steaks."

"Sure, Dave, yeah, and I'll let you know about the joyride in your jet."

***

John was relegated once again to the rental car he'd arrived in, and it just couldn't compete with Dave's monster of European engineering, but he was restless, bouncing around the house, remembering why he'd always wanted out and away and free when he'd been a teenager. So why not; a corporate jet was still a jet. He reached for the phone.

John crept along the access road at the airfield, watching for the signs for the right hanger and thinking maybe he should have taken Dave's suggestion to let the company car service drop him off. A blond guy in a pair of blue slacks and a white shirt stood outside the next hanger. The get-up said uniform in some way, and John realized it was mostly the way the guy wore it. John had always been proud of the fact that he could make dress blues look sloppy with just the right slouch. The guy stood up from his at-ease against the doorway and waved John into a parking space marked reserved.

John eased out of the too-small car, and the guy stepped forward, professional smile in place, blond hair in a regulation cut, hand out, but John saw the twitch of an aborted salute. "Colonel Sheppard," he said in a soft slow drawl that was from a lot farther south than Virginia.

"Think I'd rather be John today, not Colonel," John said and shook the offered hand.

"Absolutely," the guy said, and if it sounded like _yes, sir_, well, that was tolerable. "And I'm Alec Hamilton, John. My co-pilot, Gary, is on board, finishing the pre-flight check. Now," Alec said, leading the way inside, "Mr. Sheppard said you just wanted a tour, so we filed the flight plan we use when the company's entertaining out-of town guests—nice little cruise of the bay, the shore line, south a piece, nice boring skirt around the DC no-fly zone, but still a nice trip. It takes about an hour, hour and a half."

John proved he could still fly something as mundane as a jet, and he had a good time, laughing at Alec's encouraging comments that always had the ghost of a _sir_ at the end. He looked over with a cheeky grin when he pushed the speed to something like the lumbering beast's maximum and caught Alec flicking his gaze up and down and smiling something a little less professional. The penny dropped and John nodded to himself. _That_ kind of ex-Air Force.

Alec brought them in for a perfect landing and John thanked them both for the ride and got another flickering glance and a smile from Alec and another sir out of Gary. John went for a long looping drive through the country-side haunts of his teenage years, and this time let the dust stick to the car. He thought about heading to someplace like Virginia Beach for a few days.

***

Dave's steak place turned out to be a quiet little unpretentious joint closer to home than the office. John reminded himself, again, to stop expecting Patrick Sheppard's status-conscious taste from his brother. The steak was fantastic, the wine was mediocre, and Dave seemed more relaxed than he'd been in John's recent memory—not that they'd spent more than a few uncomfortable hours together over the last decade.

"Flight was fun?" Dave asked once they'd switched from wine to whiskey.

"Yeah, good. Your pilot—he seems young. He someone you hired?"

Dave grinned and nodded. "A lot of Dad's people took the opportunity to move on, retire. Not everybody was happy with the new order."

"Yeah?"

"To be expected."

"You like it though," John said, and it wasn't a question. Dave clearly did like running the company. Their father had enjoyed success, had enjoyed the status of being CEO of large corporation that bore his name. He'd never seemed to enjoy his life though.

"Well enough. It's, well, it's easier now."

John nodded, it would have to be. Life with Patrick had never been easy, not even for Dave.

"I hired Alec last year. He was discharged from the Air Force and none of the airlines seemed to be hiring."

John froze with his drink half-way to his mouth, Dave had put a heavy emphasis on seemed.

"And you took a chance?"

"What chance?" Dave said, and huffed out a frustrated noise. "He's a very good pilot—not a bad mark against him for his flying."

John took a slow swallow and focused on the burn of the alcohol.

"If I ask if you're seeing anyone, is that answer classified too?" Dave said quietly.

"No, not classified and no, not seeing anyone," John said, and knowing it was a deflection and not caring, he followed that right up with the turnabout. "You? Thought there was some woman?"

"There was. She got a job in New York—left about two months ago. It was never going to go anywhere. We were both too into our jobs."

"Yeah?"

"Dad would say I need to find someone who's interested in me, not her career, but I don't think I have to listen to him anymore."

John let those words rattle around in his head. He'd told himself he'd stopped listening to his father when he'd divorced Nancy and moved as far away as the Air Force could send him. He thought maybe Dave might be better at it than he'd proved to be.

"Unfortunately women don't throw themselves at me the way they do you, Johnny."

"Fuck off," John said, startled by the old nickname in the same old tone Dave had used for years.

"You remember Alice don't you?"

"Oh god, yes," John said and could feel his face heat up at the memory of all those tortured adolescent emotions.

"I had such a crush on her. Would have crawled on glass to get her to notice me, but all she could see was you."

"Yeah."

"Too bad you were too busy mooning over that groom, Kevin wasn't it?" John froze again and stared at Dave who just calmly met his gaze. "You think I didn't know, Johnny? Didn't always know?"

"Yeah, actually," John said, hearing his voice rough and low, and deciding to blame the whiskey. "I did think that."

Dave frowned and spun his own glass in a circle. "I thought about saying something, during the whole Nancy thing, or after, but..."

"That wasn't the way it was done," John said flatly, the memory of more than one conversation at the dinner table, where the subtext was loud under the polite language, clear in his mind.

"No."

"There was someone," John said and Dave didn't look up, just nodded. "Not, um, not Ronon if that's what you thought. He's just a friend, but there was some—a, ah, man I work with."

"Present tense, as in still?"

"Yeah. He, we're friends, still, always. But–"

"Jesus," Dave said. "You're a better man than me, I can't do that. Never could."

"It's complicated. He wanted things, and I..." John waved his hand, and he knew where he'd got that gesture from.

"I take it you mean things like complete sentences once in a while, rather than diamonds."

John stared.

"Direct quote from one of my girlfriends," Dave said with a rueful smile.

John barked out a laugh and gulped some more whiskey. He shook his head trying to clear the spinning thoughts. Dave had always known. Dave seemed completely unfazed. "He said once," John said and took another long drink, giving himself time to back out of saying this, but who else could he ever say it to? "He said that sometimes he just wanted to—wanted to have sex, get off, not have it be some expression of all the things I couldn't say."

_Sometimes I just want to fuck, John—just that. You want to try that? Just have fun, have sex, get off—not you trying to say things with your body you won't say in words. Guess I'm a safe bet, because you know I won't understand what you don't spell out. Just like you're safe as long as you've got my mouth occupied, and I won't say anything you can't bear to hear._

"So no chance with this guy then?"

"He's in Wisconsin visiting his girlfriend's family," John said, and Dave winced.

John was examining the wooden table top, following the whorls of grain with his eye, while his mind spun in circles. Dave dropped his phone onto the centre of the table, right in John's field of vision. "I'm a busy man, Johnny. An important man," he said.

"Yeah," John said, amused at the gentle send up of their father.

"Yeah, so I keep my pilot's number on speed dial."

John stared at Dave so he didn't have to look at the phone. "You pimping out your pilot, Dave?"

"Hell, no. He's been looking a little tense lately. I'm pimping _you_ out."

John flushed and had to stop the reach of his hand for the phone.

"Johnny, just call him up. Go have dinner or something. He's a good guy, and he's learned the hard way what discretion is, so..."

John just stared at the phone some more, and Dave pushed it closer, gave him a stern look.

"If you say anything about needing to get back on the horse, Davey, I'll have to kill you."

"Pick up the phone," Dave said, but John already had.

***

He'd put himself in Alec's hands, told him to pick where he wanted to go. John was staring at himself in the mirror and wondering what the hell he was doing. He really did have grey in his beard, there was no point in denying it. He sighed and went to shave again. It was vanity, pure and simple. Alec was no more than thirty. Just because John knew exactly what his stubble did to skin that fair—it was just the age thing.

Dinner was good—the restaurant was too trendy and full of shiny chrome, but the food was good, and if John plucked the lemon out of his water and tossed it to one side, Alec never asked why. They got on okay, talked about flying rather than the Air Force, football rather than politics, vacations they'd taken rather than places they'd been stationed. John was comfortable, and then Alec wanted to take him to a club, and there he was suddenly forty-two and a fish out of water and well, that was more normal than not for him, other galaxy and all, but he still felt like he was on Keras' planet with no grumpy Rodney to be old with.

Alec led him up the stairs of the club to the only slightly quieter balcony of the club and pressed a drink in his hand. John sipped it, tasting sugar and nothing else, and tried not to look too stiff. "Relax, John. I promise I won't make you dance."

"Probably better for all concerned," John said solemnly.

Alec laughed and moved closer, setting his hand on John's back and turning his attention to the dancers gyrating below. John had never been a club-going guy. He'd hit bars, pick-up joints—places where he could stuff his dog tags in his pocket and never get made, even by other guys with regulation hair—but the club scene had always intimidated him. He'd never seen anything in the mirror to match what was on display on the dance floor, despite what some people had told him.

"You shouldn't think so hard, John."

"Sorry," he said, and Alec flicked a finger at his arm, and John concentrated on the sharp sting until that was all he could feel, that and Alec's hand on his back.

"We can go if you're really uncomfortable."

"No, no—it's just–"

"Let's try this," Alec said and plucked the syrupy drink out of his hand and orphaned it on the nearest table. He stepped back in, slid his hand up John's chest, and around his neck and dragged him down to kiss slow and easy.

It was good, it was, and they weren't doing anything that wasn't being done dozens of times over in the club, but–

"You want to go somewhere more private?" Alec asked, letting his drawl lengthen the words out into honey softness.

"Uh–"

"There's some nice private back rooms there, a few steps away." Alec pressed up against him and kissed him again without waiting for an answer. "Downstairs votes yes, how about the rest of you?"

"I'm not sure."

"John, I want to suck your cock, not marry you," Alec said with enough exasperation to sound about like a tenth generation copy of Rodney, but that was enough to get another enthusiastic twitch from downstairs.

"Yeah, yeah—lead on," John said, trying to sound certain.

Alec led him past a stoic and very, very large bouncer, down a dim hallway, and inside an unmarked door. John was relieved to find the place cleaner and more comfortable looking than any backroom he'd ever been in. Maybe there was something to be said for a club with a cover charge as high as this one had. Alec crossed to the room's sole piece of furniture—a padded bench at a convenient height—and slumped down so he was leaning against the wall, legs splayed, slow smile spreading his lips as John watched him.

He snaked a hand into the pocket of his nice, tight jeans and then waved a condom packet at John. "Think those runner's knees of yours can handle this bench?" Alec patted the bench on either side of his thighs. "I don't kneel on this floor for anybody."

John smiled through the memories that phrase evoked. Pushing thoughts of Rodney ruthlessly aside, he knelt up on the bench and braced his arms against the wall over Alec's head. Things were lined up pretty nice, as Alec had clearly known they would be—this was not his first time in this club. He made short work of John's fly and muttered a honest sounding _nice_ when John's cock sprang free. He rolled on the condom and John watched as Alec licked the head of his cock while John tried to calm himself down enough so that he didn't go off like a rocket.

"Mmmm," Alec looked up and grinned, "Minty fresh."

"Really?" John said and laughed when he noticed the slight green colour of the condom. "You like the taste of those things? I've lost all respect for you, man."

"You," Alec said, "don't know what you're missing." He grinned again and then opened wide and took John in almost balls deep. John moaned loud and long, and stopped being nervous and just held on for a very enjoyable ride. Back on the horse after all.

John returned the favour, after a suitable interval, showing off a little bit, until he had Alec struggling not to thrust into his mouth, and at one point, nearly begging for John to finish it.

"Hey," John said, when they were put back together and heading back into the club. "Thanks, man. That was fun."

"Yeah," Alec said, "It was."

***

The south pier looked strange with a helicopter sitting on it, even more strange than the Golden Gate in the background. John hoisted his bag over one shoulder and decided to take the long way back to his quarters. It was good to be home.

He wasn't in his own room two minutes before the door was opening, and Rodney was breezing in. "Sheppard, heard you were back. You should have let me know, I have a list."

"Come in, Rodney. Yes, my vacation was lovely, Rodney. What list, Rodney?"

"Hmmm. I've just spent several days with my sister, I'm impervious to sarcasm that weak. Which, god, remind me to have a word with the mess hall staff—we're on Earth, there's no reason for the coffee to be so insipid, and where did you go anyway?"

"Went to see Dave."

"Really? Um, how was that? If, that is, you want to say, ah–"

"No, it was good—fun, actually. I'm—really glad I went," John smiled to himself. There, two full sentences—that wasn't so hard.

"Oh ah, good, I—yes, good."

"List?" John said when it looked like Rodney was just going to stare into space for a while.

"Oh, yes—shopping list. I'm forcing everyone to bring back something on my list."

"You know, the SGC will actually supply you with electronics. You don't have to empty the shelves at every computer store in San Francisco."

"The SGC don't know their asses from their supply requisitions. This is easier."

"Does explain why the helicopter pilot looked like he wanted to kiss me when I showed up with just one bag." John grinned at the words and watched Rodney's eyes slowly narrow.

"You do look relaxed. My family are not relaxing. I think I'm annoyed—jealous and annoyed."

"So what's new? Aside from Jeannie being, well a lot like you, everything go okay?"

"Yes, yes, fine," Rodney said, waving away any discussion of his leave. "Oh, I have a plan."

"Shopping?"

"No, no. Just, Ronon's back, and Teyla's supposed to be here tomorrow. I thought we could go out, you know just us, and you know how Teyla likes seafood, and even with the dangers of lemon butter, and it's touristy but—Fisherman's Wharf?"

"Sounds good, Rodney, really good." John fished the book and the bottle of whiskey he'd stolen from Dave's house out of his duffel and set them on his dresser. "Maybe some shopping too?"

"Toy store." Rodney grinned and his eyes danced with anticipation.

"How old do you think Torren would have to be to have his own remote control car?"

"He's really very advanced."

"Yeah," John said decisively, "no reason not to buy ahead."

"Absolutely."

"Let's go find out when Teyla's due," John said and headed for the door. "You know what I really want to do?"

"Fly a jumper to the moon?"

"Yeah," John said sourly, disappointed that Rodney had guessed so easily. "How'd you know?"

"Years of painful experience, Sheppard. I know how you think."

"How much trouble would we be in if we got caught?"

"The trick is to not get caught," Rodney said, and John knew it was a go, just by the look in his eyes.

It was good to be home.  



End file.
